What's His NameJoanne
by Eponine54
Summary: Yet another MaureenMark breakup RENTfic. Please RR and hopefully you'll get a new oulook on the breakup...or maybe not, but who knows?


RENTfic2  
  
What's His Name-Joanne  
  
By Cailin Humphrys  
  
Mark Cohen sat on the floor of his and Roger's apartment, sifting through pictures of him and his girlfriend, Maureen. They had been together for almost three years now, and he wanted to make something really special for her. Roger and his girlfriend, April, had given him the idea of making a scrapbook of him and Maureen's past three years-pictures, ticket stubs, everything. Mark lifted up one picture and smiled at the fond memory- Maureen lay half asleep on the couch, and Mark had his arms around her. She looked so adorable, so angelic, just laying there-completely different from her usual troublemaking self. Mark groaned inwardly, just thinking of some of the fights they'd had, thinking of the first (and only, he hoped) time she confessed to cheating on him. There had been some rocky spots, to be sure, but all in all, he and Maureen were smooth sailing. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and then the door opened. It was Maureen. Mark quickly scrambled to get the pictures back into the box and hide it before Maureen saw them.   
  
"Hey baby" she said, and gave him a tight smile, not the devilishly charming one he was used to. Mark reached up and pulled Maureen down onto his lap on the floor.   
  
"Hey there-what's going on?"   
  
Maureen looked shocked, almost guilty, at the question. However, she regained her composure and sidestepped the question casually.  
  
"Whatcha working on?"  
  
"Oh, nothing, just looking at some old...ah...things." Mark answered, trying to think of a plausible lie. That's Maureen's talent, not yours, he thought grimly. Mark put his arms around Maureen's waist and began trailing kisses down her neck.  
  
"You seem subdued today, babe. Anything wrong?"   
  
Maureen bit her lip, and for once, her talents as an actress failed her as she burst into tears. Completely floored by the sudden change in emotion (although quite used to it by now), Mark wrapped his arms around her in a big hug and asked her, "Oh my God, what happened? Is it your parents? Are you pregnant or something? Say something, please!"  
  
Maureen wiped her eyes with the corner of her sweatshirt and looked at Mark with watery eyes.  
  
"I don't know how to start this...or where to begin."  
  
Mark's insides turned to iron. Just keep cool, dude, he thought. It isn't necessarily what your instincts tell you is coming...it can't be...then he said, "Oh shit...oh no, Maureen, whatever it is, we can fix it, I swear."  
  
"Baby- I think that this is kinda unfixable."  
  
Mark, trying to control the urge to shake Maureen and get her to give him a straight answer, said, "We can raise money for an abortion, or we can put it up for adoption! That could work!" He knew he was babbling and trying to escape what now seemed inevitable, but anything other than what he knew damn well was coming was a better alternative. Maureen looked startled, and then laughed weakly.   
  
"No Mark-it's not pregnancy or parents. It's us. I have to tell you something."  
  
"I was hoping you weren't gonna say that."  
  
Mark let go of Maureen and she got up and started pacing. Mark got up too, and looked her in the eye.   
  
"Maureen, did you cheat on me again?"  
  
Shifting uncomfortably, she whispered, "Yes."  
  
Running his hand through his hair, Mark muttered, "Son of a bitch..." then, "Why? Why is it that I am never good enough for you-that you always have to go off to someone else, and then come running back, only to realize I wasn't as good as you thought? Why don't you either make the damned commitment or break it off?"  
  
"Umm...that's what I came here to tell you. I'm leaving you. I met someone else."  
  
Snorting derisively, Mark said, "I'm surprised you didn't leave the first time. I probably should have left you instead..." Seeing the look on Maureen's face, he softened and said, "But I couldn't-because I love you. Doesn't that mean anything?"  
  
"It does Mark, honestly. It just means something different now. And I know if you had left me, I probably would have deserved it-but you didn't because you loved me, and that's why this is so hard to do."  
  
Suddenly feeling numb, the whole shock finally settling upon him, Mark asked, "So this is it? We can't try again?  
  
In a choked voice, Maureen answered, "I'm so sorry Mark."  
  
Collapsing on the couch, Mark asked, "Just one question-what's his name?"  
  
"Uhh...umm...Joanne."  
  
Mark leaped up from the couch. "You're with a girl? A chick? You're a lesbian??!!"  
  
With his head in his hands, he moaned, "I turned my girlfriend lesbian. I'll never get laid again once this gets out."  
  
Maureen replied, "Your didn't turn me lesbian, I just realized that I liked women as well. I've had bisexual tendencies ever since last year, with umm..."  
  
"So you mean you were unfaithful another time??"  
  
Somehow managing to look sheepish and suitably discomfited at the same time, she answered, "Yeah...anyway, with umm...Cynthia, I believe her name was."  
  
"I'm not hearing this...this isn't happening. My girlfriend did not cheat on me with two other women!"  
  
"Mark, I know this is hard, but this is who I am now-don't hate me for it." Mark groaned again. Maureen looked at him with pity, then, "I'll let you by yourself for a bit. I'll come back for my stuff next week." Quietly, Maureen left. Mark nodded, almost unaware of the fact that she wasn't there to see him nod. He sat there on the couch, hoping that maybe she would come running back inside the room saying she was wrong and wanted him back, and could they talk about this? He waited, just hoping he would hear the sound of her heels tapping through the hall, waited for her to burst into the room in dramatic Maureen fashion...but she didn't. He knew she wouldn't.   
  
"Maureen..." he groaned. No, there was something he could do. There HAD to be, they had been together too long for him to just let her walk in, break it off, and leave. In a sudden burst of energy, Mark got up and ran to the window to see if he could see her still walking on the street-he could call to her, they could talk about it! Mark tossed open the shades, and wrenched open the window. As he stuck his head out the window however, he saw something he would have given his life not to see. Maureen was walking down the street still, and about to turn the corner-but she was holding hands with another woman. Before they turned the corner, he saw Maureen lean over and plant a kiss on the other woman's cheek. Then they were gone. Slumping onto the floor, and not bothering to close the window, Mark knew it was over. There was nothing he could do. "I'll assume that's Joanne...unless she's already taken to cheating on that poor bitch too. I wonder if this so-called Joanne has any idea on what she's getting herself into..." Maybe, just maybe, Mark thought, maybe he was better off. No more constantly worrying on whether she was faithful, no more sleepless nights of holding her in his arms and wondering if this was too good to be true, no more giving in over and over again to Maureen's whims-all it took to get him to give in was a pout of her lips, a tilt of the head...  
  
"But I'll be stronger this time. I can live without her. She's...she's..." Mark buried his head in his hands and finished his thought silently: "She's everything I ever wanted, all the things I truly loved...and now it's gone." Suddenly, April and Roger came in through the door to find Mark slumped on the floor. April ran to his side and just hugged him, while Roger muttered something about making some tea. Soothingly, April whispered, "Sh...I know, I know...it'll be ok Mark, really it will." Mark felt himself starting to break in the gentle touch of one of his closest friends. "April...please...leave me alone..." he tried to say before a wave of unbearable sadness swept over him and he broke down into tears.  
  
Roger came over a few minutes later with the tea. April sat Mark up, and Roger gave him the teacup. Taking it, he slurped it down gratefully. Then, he cleared his throat and asked, "You knew?" April nodded.  
  
"We didn't know before you, we just saw Maureen walking down the street, all over some other woman...we hoped to God that she had at least had the decency to tell you, and that we wouldn't have to be the ones who did."   
  
Sniffling, Mark answered, "Yeah, she told me alright. She came in and told me that she had cheated again, that this time is was a woman...that there had been another time a year ago when she had first realized she was bi..." It was too much to take in all at once. Roger patted his friend on the back in a manly fashion. "Don't worry Mark, I'm sure you'll find someone who appreciates you more than she did, someone who won't cheat on you like she did."   
  
"Yeah," April chimed in, "I mean Maureen was nice and all, but your entire relationship was centered around drama, problems...it was like a frikken soap opera...no offense."   
  
Mark grimaced, and then replied, "None taken...you're right you know. There was hardly ever a point in time when we were just...us. We were never completely in tune, never totally reliant on each other-nothing like you two." Roger and April smiled at the compliment.   
  
Roger said, "It was just that Maureen liked drama too much. She worked it, lived it, needed it in order to flourish. I swear that sometimes she wanted to create problems just so she could bring her drama diva persona into her personal life as well the workplace."   
  
Mark nodded, then said, "Listen...as much as I appreciate you guys being here and all, what I really need is time to sleep this off, think things through. It that all right?"  
  
The young couple nodded, and then walked off hand in hand, with April muttering something about finding Benny and Collins and warning them not to come back to the loft for a while.  
  
Mark sighed, and went back over to the box of pictures.  
  
"Guess I won't be needing these anymore...I wonder if she would have actually liked it."  
  
He took the last picture of he and Maureen that he had been looking at out. After studying it carefully for a few minutes, trying to hold in the emotions that had been threatening to pour out the second that Maureen had left him, he tore the picture slowly in half. Suddenly, as if in a mad rage, he went through the entire box, tearing up all the pictures, throwing the bits of torn up pictures everywhere, tossing aside memories and love as of he just didn't care anymore.   
  
An hour later, Mark, who had collapsed on the floor after throwing a huge fit, suddenly looked around and realized what he had done.  
  
"Shit...this will take forever to clean up...might well start now."   
  
Without noticing what he was picking up, he found a trash bin and threw all of the tattered remains of his and Maureen's relationship into the bin.   
  
"Maybe the sooner I forget you existed, the sooner I could forget about you..." he muttered, before taking the bin and setting it aside in the corner-just like she had done to him. 


End file.
